Why Seijsener pedestals? An interview with David Hollingsworth, Westpark Marina, New Zealand

How has your own Marina been developing, and what were the choices you had to make.

Westpark is a 27 year old Bellingham unifloat marina, constructed of concrete pontoons, wooden piles and a rock seawall. We think we are around halfway through our lifecycle, so maintenance is now becoming a very important issue as we manage the facility through the remainder of its physical life.

We were also conscious of a need to stay on top of our game in terms of offering a top class product for our customers (our berth holders and renters), so we developed a comprehensive 3-year plan designed to do exactly that. We looked at everything from the way we communicated to customers, to developing refurbishment plans, to improving services such as security. At the moment, we are a year into that plan, but have ticked off more than half the things we wanted to do already, so that is pretty pleasing.

How did Seijsener and the Seijsener products fit in your plans? What are their specific qualities?

One of the biggest projects we are likely to undertake is the installation of new electric service pedestals, and introducing user-pays power consumption. We investigated pedestals from New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Italy, Holland and the UK, before settling on the Pacific pedestal offered by Seijsener.

What impressed us with this product was its’ robustness which was readily evident, and the ability to tailor the product to our own specific requirements. In the end, we selected the Pacific model. We were able to specify the height we wanted, control who could access the power, and with the installation of meters, we saw a 40% reduction in power consumption in the first month!

All in all, Seijsener understood our requirements completely, and were able to offer solutions to resolve issues we had. Once the pedestals arrived, we found they were very easy to install, and that side of it went very well.

What are your plans for the future in this perspective?

Our initial order was for 170 pedestals, which did just over half of our marina. We have since ordered a further 130 which will see our marina entirely kitted out before the end of March 2013. After the first order, we decided to make some subtle changes and introduce isolating switches – the beauty of the product is that this was easily accommodated in the new order, but we will be able to retrofit the first order as well.